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Switch to Claude without starting over

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181–190 of 287 posts

Re: Switch to Claude without starting over

#181
post #17
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most normal people want the LLM to remember their interests and favourite things, so they don't have to manually re-explain when asking for advice. They also don't know what "context" is or that the LLM has a limited number of tokens it can understand at any given time. They just believe it knows everything at once.

Do you have example prompts where this would be usual? Why would you want an LLM to know your favorite type of cheese? Now that I say that, I guess if you use it for recipes then it's useful if it remembers things like dietary restrictions. And even then a project seems like the better option. I can't think of much else though so I'm still curious what you or others use it for.

Sure.

ChatGPT "knows" (has context that includes) some of the things I'm good at, and some of the things I'm not good at. I have my own tolerances for communication and it has context about that, too.

I use the bot for mostly techy things. So, for instance, I'm alright with using tools, and building electronics, and punting around on a Linux box so I don't need my hand held for that. But I'm terrible at writing code, so baby steps and detailed explanation there helps me a lot. I strongly prefer pragmatism and verifiable facts. I despise sycophant speech, the empty positivity of corpo-speak, assumptions, false praise, superfluous verbosity, and apologies and/or the implication of feelings from bots.

Through a combination of some deliberate training (custom instructions, memory), and just using it (shared context), it mostly does what I want in the way that I want it done -- the first time.

I don't have to steer in the right direction with every new session. There was a time when that was necessary, but it is no longer that way. Adjustments happen increasingly automatically these days.

That saves me time and frustration, and enhances the utility of the bot.

Meanwhile: Others have their own skills and preferences that may be very different in comparison to my own. That's OK. We each get to have our own experience.

Re: Switch to Claude without starting over

#182
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this over and over again. I don't dispute your experience. My experience with ESP32 development has been unreasonably positive. My codebase is sitting around 600k LoC and is the product of several hundred Opus 4.x Plan -> Agent -> Debug loops. I review everything that goes through, but I'm reviewing the business logic and domain gotchas, not dumb crap like what you and so many others describe. What is so strang…

> My experience with ESP32 development has been unreasonably positive. My codebase is sitting around 600k LoC and is the product of several hundred Opus 4.x Plan -> Agent -> Debug loops. I feel like this is an example of people having different standards of what “good” code is and hence the differing opinions of how good these tools are. I’m not an embedded developer but 600K LOC seems like a lot in that context, doe…

I don't think it's that large. Keep in mind embedded projects take few if any dependencies. The standard library in most languages is far bigger than 600k loc.

Re: Switch to Claude without starting over

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have used Claude (incl. Opus 4.6) fairly extensively, and Claude still spits out quality that is far below what I would call production ready - both littered with smaller issues, but also the occasional larger blunder. Particularly when doing anything non-trivial, and even when guiding it in detail (although that admittedly reduces the amount of larger structural issues). Maybe it is tech stack dependent (I have mo…

I see this over and over again. I don't dispute your experience. My experience with ESP32 development has been unreasonably positive. My codebase is sitting around 600k LoC and is the product of several hundred Opus 4.x Plan -> Agent -> Debug loops. I review everything that goes through, but I'm reviewing the business logic and domain gotchas, not dumb crap like what you and so many others describe. What is so strang…

600k lines of code for anything on the ESP32 sounds like the absolute polar opposite of “good”

Re: Switch to Claude without starting over

#184
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My experience with ESP32 development has been unreasonably positive. My codebase is sitting around 600k LoC and is the product of several hundred Opus 4.x Plan -> Agent -> Debug loops. I feel like this is an example of people having different standards of what “good” code is and hence the differing opinions of how good these tools are. I’m not an embedded developer but 600K LOC seems like a lot in that context, doe…

I don't think it's that large. Keep in mind embedded projects take few if any dependencies. The standard library in most languages is far bigger than 600k loc.

I work with ESP32 devices and 600k lines of code is insane.

Re: Switch to Claude without starting over

#185
post #13

I already switched to claude a while ago. Didn’t bring along any context, just switched subscriptions, walked away from chatgpt and haven’t touched it again. Turned out to be a non-event, there really is no moat. I switched not because I thought Claude was better at doing the things I want. I switched because I have come to believe OpenAI are a bad actor and I do not want to support them in any way. I’m pretty sure t…

I never understood the point of this kind of comment. It doesn't add any value or anything to the discussion. Its basically two paragraphs with some presupposition (openai bad) and how the author is virtuous by canceling his subscription. No explanation, argument, nuance. Its just virtue signaling. Actually... I guess I do know the point of this kind of comment. I just don't know why these kinds of comments get upvoted, even if you do agree openai bad

Re: Switch to Claude without starting over

#187

As someone who can't afford to care about ethics and pay a monthly subscription fee, is there anything in the regular Claude chat that beats OpenAI?

All of the Claude models are smarter than the GPT models. I had a few threads that I migrated from GPT to Claude and every single one Claude pointed out problems. Two examples:

1. In one, I was putting together a server build. Claude correctly pointed out some incompatibilities in some parts that GPT had recommended.

2. In another chat, I had asked for help interpreting lab results and suggesting supplements. Claude pointed out that GPT was over-interpreting the results and suggesting things that weren't backed up by facts.

I presented Claude's response back to GPT and in both of these specific cases, GPT admitted it was wrong and didn't have any rebuttal. It's hard to say without doing a more scientific experiment whether GPT is indeed worse, but anecdotally I find myself pointing out flaws in Claude's reasoning far less frequently than GPT, especially with Opus.

Another less important distinction: GPT has a very distinct writing style that heavily formats responses and repeats itself a few times. Claude is succinct and mostly writes like a person might. It's easier to talk to and feels less "cringe" and sycophantic.

Re: Switch to Claude without starting over

#188
post #2

Could someone explain the appeal of account-wide memory to me? Anthropic’s marketing indicates that nothing bleeds over, but I’m just so protective of my context that I cannot imagine having even a majorly distilled version of my other chats and preferences having on weight on the output. As for certain preferences like code styling or response length, these are all fit for custom instructions, with more detailed thi…

I own a lot of dirt bikes, boats, snowmobiles, mowers, and blowers. It's much easier for me to ask about "My Polaris" than it is to ask about my "2011 Polaris Switchback Assault".

Similarly, it remembers the dimensions of my truck, so towing/loading questions don't need extra clarification.

It's the small things.

Re: Switch to Claude without starting over

#189
post #48
post #13

I already switched to claude a while ago. Didn’t bring along any context, just switched subscriptions, walked away from chatgpt and haven’t touched it again. Turned out to be a non-event, there really is no moat. I switched not because I thought Claude was better at doing the things I want. I switched because I have come to believe OpenAI are a bad actor and I do not want to support them in any way. I’m pretty sure t…

[flagged]

OpenAI actually does have two excellent OSS models. Not Anthropic. Not that OpenAI is 'open' per se, but more so than Anthropic. Also see the Codex vs Claude Code extensibility.

Re: Switch to Claude without starting over

#190
post #13

I already switched to claude a while ago. Didn’t bring along any context, just switched subscriptions, walked away from chatgpt and haven’t touched it again. Turned out to be a non-event, there really is no moat. I switched not because I thought Claude was better at doing the things I want. I switched because I have come to believe OpenAI are a bad actor and I do not want to support them in any way. I’m pretty sure t…

I love no mote!

One day I'd like to create a server in my basement that just runs a few really really nice models, and then get some friends and CO workers to pay me $10 a month for unlimited access.

All with the understanding that if you hog the entire server I'm going to kick you off, and if you generate content that makes the feds knock on my door I'm turning over the server logs and your information. Don't be an idiot, and this can be a good thing between us friends.

It would be like running a private Minecraft server. Trust means people can usually just do what they want in an unlimited way, but "unlimited" doesn't necessarily mean you can start building an x86 processor out of redstone and lagging the whole server. And you can't make weird naked statues everywhere either.

Usually these things aren't issues among a small group. Usually the private server just means more privacy and less restriction.

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